St. Anton

We’d had a nice drive across a very green and verdant western Austria to get to St Anton, even if we did have to pay 15 euro for the pleasure of driving through Switzerland from Livigno. Our first attempt to leave was thwarted by us not looking at the map close enough and discovering that a mountain pass was closed for winter. Oh dear must read that fine print!

Very spring (summer?) like conditions at the Sport Ranch camping in the Arlberg valley

By the time we arrived it was a balmy 25 plus and the St Anton (Arlberg) valley was looking very green and spring like. We we’re beginning to feel a bit out of place with snowboards on the back of the van! We had a look at the slopes from town when we arrived and there didn’t look like there was much boarding to be had, but the locals insisted that it was still top to bottom skiing warning that the conditions after midday were a little ‘wet’ and to be sure to get runs in early…

The amazing new access gondola with a ferris wheel syle loading system

We made it up the mountain as early as we could after a one too many beers the night before but already by 10 the snow started turning to slush and the barometer had already risen into the 20’s!

So some snow on this piste...

...but not much on this one

Sure enough we managed to do a few top to bottom runs but the last sections of the bottom runs into St Anton Village had more in common with wakeboarding than snowboarding. Most of the pistes were only rideable as they’d made so much extra snow during the cooler days that these sections were often the only part of the mountain with snow on it! Very odd boarding in sweltering temperatures on pistes with green grass and spring heather on either side! Still we had a great day but couldn’t convince ourselves that it was worth spending anymore.

What the locals call "top to bottom" skiing

Alas, 25 boarding days, 4 countries and 13 fields later, it was time to finish our season : (